


Fine

by FrenchKey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mentions of War (Magical), Relationship Problems, Trust Issues, Unspecified characters, break-ups, implied child neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchKey/pseuds/FrenchKey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the war, Harry has a very telling conversation with Ginny. 'She accepted it. He was not prepared for how much that would hurt.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years ago when I should have been studying for exams. Hope you enjoy!

She came and sat next to him in silence. It made a change, usually she couldn’t stop talking. They sat there, side-by-side in the twilight, for some indefinite amount of time before she spoke.  
“Are you alright?”  
It was a stupid question. They both knew that he wasn’t. He also knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. 

He wanted to rage and scream against the injustice. He wanted to make her understand how he really felt. He wanted to explain the confusion and the pain and the hurt that he had felt since the culmination of the war that had defined his entire life. He wanted her to know the daily struggles he faced in coping with events of the past years. He wanted to confess to her his abiding loneliness. He wanted to receive sincere comfort from the shelter of her arms. He wanted her love.

He had been alone for too long now. He had been unable to let anyone in since childhood. Anyone close to him had the capacity to cause more pain and he was terrified. His dearest wish was to have someone he could trust with these secrets, someone who could understand his past, ease his present and be willing to share his future. It was a futile hope. He knew this. His childhood had laid the foundations of solitude and growing up had built the walls higher and higher with each betrayal and disappointment. He had learned to lock his heart away from the chance of pain and he had long ago lost the key. He knew of no one who was willing to help him find it again.

She sat next to him the stillness, her fiery hair dim in the darkness. Echoes of her whispered question danced in the cool air. He could tell her everything now. He could turn to her and open the door, showing her his troubles. He could trust her and she would run. He knew this as surely as he knew his own name. Her sheltered upbringing, abundant in love as his had never been, had never taught her true pain or hardship. She was strong but her strength was insufficient for the burdens he bore. Should he introduce her to the immeasurable pain he had known she would shy away. He would lose her. He could not trust her to stay when so many others had left. So many others had given him up as a lost cause. She would be no different.

The silence had lasted a beat too long. He plastered a weary smile onto his face and gave her the only answer he could.  
“I’m fine.”  
She accepted it. He had not been prepared for how much that would hurt.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't ever intend to write any more of this. It was originally meant to be a multi-chaptered fic until I edited the first chapter, tried to write some more and realised it really didn't work. I posted it as a one-shot and meant to leave it that way. That should have been it. It was finished. Then I had a bit of a eureka moment in the shower of all places when the plot bunnies bit me and decided it needed another chapter. So here it is.

The cool stillness of the dawn was barely stirred by the chirping of birds. There was little to disturb the dark haired pair sitting on the brow of the small hill. Chin resting on drawn up knees the man watched the reds and oranges of the rising sun sparkle across the surface of the clouds.

The quiet was broken by a question from the curly haired girl leaning on the man’s shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

It was, he mused, an interesting question. It seemed to follow him wherever he went. It was asked again and again by anyone and everyone. Over the course of many years it had been there in most of his conversations, the answer slowly but surely evolving.

Once, fresh out of a war, that question had heralded the end of a relationship. It had prompted snapping, growling and cutting sarcasm in response. He’d driven an awful lot of people away like that. Their false understanding, their leading questions, their insistence on talking had grated. No one had been capable of a silent acceptance of his pain.

Perversely, the few who had accepted his empty assurances of emotional stability and happiness had only angered him further. Unable to let anyone in and yet unwilling to be left alone he had been a nightmare to live with. In the end she had been the only one capable of breaking down his walls. The only one who had been there with him through it all, who had seen everything that he had seen and felt the same pain that he had felt, was the only one who could reach him. She had stretched out a hand and picked him up. She told him that she saw through his empty words but that she’d let him talk in his own time.

With patient understanding and a listening ear from her he had healed over time. It had been a slow process and not without fresh pain as some relationships, thought to be forever, splintered beyond repair. Not all had fallen by the wayside. Some relationships were forged anew and some were tempered and strengthened by the struggles. In the end he learned to smile again and be thankful for the present.

The man looked down at his daughter, surprised as always by the perfect blend of himself and her mother reflected in her chocolate eyes and dark curls. He smiled.

“I’m fine, sweetheart.”

Perhaps, it was not the answer that had changed but the sincerity behind the words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's really it this time. It's definitely finished. Comments are always appreciated.


End file.
